PRESS RELEASE: National Skill Development Corporation, Ennovent to help skilling firms in India get funding

Tuesday, August 4, 2015

In line with the recently launched ‘Skill India Mission’ by the Honourable Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi, Power to Empower (P2E 2015), a national skill development challenge, recently launched its fourth edition. It is co-organized by National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) and CII’s India @ 75, implemented by Ennovent, an innovation services company. P2E 2015 aims to create an investible pipeline of skill development organizations in India and create opportunities and aspirations for skilling as an entrepreneurial opportunity in different sectors to fill the demand of trained skilled workforce in the country.

According to reports, being one of the fastest growing economies, India’s population is expected to grow from 1.2 to 1.4 billion by year 2026. According to a report recently launched by NSDC, It is estimated that India will have an incremental human resource requirement of 110 million additional skilled personnel across 24 sectors by 2022. The resulting disconnect between the supply and demand for skilled labour and limited opportunities for vocational training means that a large majority of India’s population cannot realize the employment opportunities necessary to improve their income and contribute positively to India’s growth (NSDC).

Currently there is a massive gap between the supply and demand of skilled labour in India. The Power to Empower challenge aims to reward the best solutions bridging this gap. This Challenge is open to individuals, academic institutions, companies, not-for-profit organizations and aspiring entrepreneurs who aim to address the skill development challenge in India.

The Application submission for Power to Empower 2015 is open now until October 28, 2015. The finalists and winners of P2E 2015 will receive investment opportunities, mentoring support, nationwide visibility and capacity building to catalyse the scale up of the organisations.

Learn more about Power to Empower 2015

There is a large entrepreneurial opportunity that exists in the skill development arena in India. Power to Empower challenge is focused on encouraging innovative and implementable business solutions that contribute to the development of these sustainable skills.

This year, applications for P2E 2015 will be accepted as part of three distinct categories – Idea, Seed and Operations. The Idea category will focus on a solution concept developed on paper; Seed category will reward a prototype or an innovation at the pilot stage and applicants in the Operations category will be judged on the current operations.

Applicants will be constantly notified with regard to the status of their applications and confidentiality of each entry will be maintained.

One winner and three finalists will be chosen from each category. The winners and finalists will all receive access to experts, capacity building support, training facilities, access to high-profile events and national visibility through traditional and non-traditional media.

Commenting on the occasion, Dilip Chenoy, Managing Director & CEO, National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) said, “In order to fulfil our PM’s vision of ‘Skill India’, it is imperative to scale up the country’s entrepreneurial initiatives and ongoing ventures in the skill development space. Power to Empower is a major initiative that will not only add an investible pipeline of skill development organizations in India, but more importantly create opportunities and aspirations for skill development as an entrepreneurial opportunity across different sectors to fill the demand of formally skill trained workforce in the country. My best wishes to all the contenders of P2E.”